My wife calls me the Grinch because I refure to put up regular Christmas lights on my home.
Why because I know that the coal used to create electricity for Christmas lights is depositing mercury into our oceans and now found in tiny mircro life forms that larger sea animals consume. The smoke from coal burning creates acid rain. The eastern U.S. states just won a huge settlement from the coal burning electric plants in the mid west. This should help to better the situation. However the more carbon we create in our atmosphere the worse global warming gets. What do we want draughts in the U.S., our Great Lakes water levels to continue to drop, water taken from the Great Lakes to create lawns in the desert and in Georgia? Do we want to see massive water level rises that wipe out polar bears in the Arctic and destroy coastal cities across the globe? Do we want to see super famines in the third world and war over water?
Better Christmas lights may be one small thing but over all the casual use of electricity for Christmas lights demonstares a lack of understanding where we are on this planet right now. My suggestion to those with the coin out there to develope better solar Christmas lights to replace electric Christmas lights. We need to change and keep traditions without doing further harm to the environment. Especially now that Christmas lights are showing up on homes and business before U.S. Thanksgiving.
In this house this year there will be no electric Christmas lights outside. I will endure the whining. This is our gift back to the planet. This is our good stewardship to the environment that we need to protect.
Time for the invention of better mass produced and simple solar Christmas lights. Conserve electricity and burn less coal and create less nuclear power plants.
There are already solar powered Christmas lights for sale but they should be better made.
